Apr 11 2017-Rotary Forum

Pres. Greg Baker opened the meeting with his usual this day in history: the Titanic set sail from Southampton on her maiden voyage bound for New York on April 10, 1912; Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 10, 1947; and the first recording session of Bill Haley and his Comets yielded "Rock Around the Clock", which became Haley's biggest hit and one of the most important records in rock and roll history session, on April 12, 1954.

Andrea Lueker announced that the Youth Literacy program will begin very soon and she requested at least 3 members sign up to distribute the books to students at each of the primary grade schools in the program. Jules Cuprys announced that Rotaract’s major fundraiser Flavor of SLO is on May 5 with a bottle of wine as your admission. She also requested help to assemble 300 bags of essentials for the homeless next Tuesday, May 18^th. Michael Boyer requested volunteers to chauffeur RYLA students to Ojai on Thursday, April 20. Ashlea Boyer requested volunteers to help grade the Four-Way test entries this Wednesday, April 12. Paul Holden again circulated a sign-up sheet for the $50 Paul Harris raffle.  Steve Curry announced that there are just a few more spots available for the golf tournament and that a golf meeting will be held right after this meeting. There is just a little over two weeks to go before the May 1 tournament. Ashlea Boyer reminded everyone of the social tomorrow April 12 from 5:30 to 7:30 PM with wine and hors d’oeuvres at the Pismo Lighthouse Suites. A Rotary board meeting will be held at Deenie Dotson’s home on Thursday evening April 13.

Fine master Jack Hardy fined Andy Park $75 in absentia for his club anniversary.  Tommy Thompson’s club anniversary cost him $60. Mike Frederick’s trip to New Orleans cost him $50. John and Marcia Traversaro’s wedding anniversary cost John $75. Paul Holden’s birthday was recognized with a $50 fine. Jeff King’s club anniversary cost him $35. Steve Curry’s April 16 anniversary resulted in a spin-the-wheel fine of $40. Michael Boyer is tapped out for the season, but is $50 fine was assigned to his wife, Ashley Boyer.

Michael Boyer is the District 5240 Membership Chair for Region 4 and began his presentation with a short video from the Rotary Foundation. He stated that there are four ways to have a strong membership: 1. Membership satisfaction; 2. Fun and engaging meetings; 3. Transparency; and 4. Servant leadership. John Hewko, the General Secretary of Rotary International and the Rotary Foundation, has been involved in rebranding Rotary re-framing our message so that the public can get to know us better. Michael gave an example of the importance on a personal level: if you have a Rotary sticker on your automobile and you cut someone off, you can imagine how that person will feel about Rotarians in general. To increase member satisfaction we may want to go back to conducting frequent membership surveys as was done during Michael’s tenure as president. We can invite family and friends to meetings and personalize member introductions. To have more fun and have more enjoyable meetings, we should have informal meetings once or twice a month. We can have social events that include dinners. To produce better transparency, we need to have better communication among members. As far as servant leadership goes, we need to assure what members to do want not what the board wants. We should have discussions on the ideas to engage our members on an ongoing basis and phone calls to members who have not been coming to meetings lately. We may want to bring back the mentor program such as having one member look out for another. Having biographical craft talks is another way of improving communications. We should guard against overloading any particular member so they don’t become overwhelmed and leave the club. Michael ended the program by showing a video that has been tested in Atlanta and will become a mainstream promotional TV video.

“Speak in such a way that others love to listen to you. Listen in such a way that others love to speak to you.”